Author
Topic: Is It Rolling, Bob? (Read 5175 times)

I'm not sure at this point I can introduce myself in an original thread. I shall test it, and edit accordingly.

As it turns out I can post here, my introduction.

I am David. The name means Beloved of God. Like the King. Who sent a righteous man to his certain death because he fancied the man's wife.

My parents were atheists, they gave no thought to my name. And I have lived up to it as would be expected. In shame.

In the midwestern united states - the so called bible belt I was born and raised. An atheist, though not in the militant sense of 40 years in the wilderness. I hated God, the concept, the hypocritical self-righteous self imposed moral police of the globe.

At the age of 21 I found myself in a homosexual relationship.

Ugliness and perversion.

When my soul mate fucked anything that moved outside of that arrangement I found some time on my hands. A Bible was given to me which I had never read. As an atheist I decided to read it in order to debunk the loathsome and despicable Christianity.

To be honest, I find this self-introduction to be just a wee bit dubious. First off, you pushed the whole "atheist, hates God" thing just a bit hard there, as well as the "homosexual relationship, promiscuous partner" thing. And then your miraculous conversion the very first time you read the Bible?

You'll have to excuse me for being doubtful, but it is not difficult to make up personal stories on the Internet, especially if you're a theist who believes all the guff about immoral homosexual atheists who hate Christians and God.

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Nullus In Verba, aka "Take nobody's word for it!" If you can't show it, then you don't know it.

Yes, I'm homosexual, though I no longer practice. And yes, I did create that site. I put that up a little over a month ago, and have been working on it since then. Originally it started out as a forum much like this with responses from the Skeptic's Annotated Bible, when I discovered Steve Wells was adding links to these responses I started it as a website known as The Pathway Machine, and then The Theist. I took it down for a while and just put it back up recently. I had about 200 responses to the SAB, including all of Revelation, Jude, many topics and a few What the Bible says about. . . many of those articles have been published on many forums, some by me and some by others. I'm trying to get them all together and then add new ones.

My parents were atheists; I'm gay--my partner did me wrong, out of boredom I picked up a Bible to debunk it and then out-of-the-blue all the nonsense inside made sense.

When are these people going to be more original. I knew you were a liar from the emotional disgust of your parents naming you David.

Hey, my name's David. Who the fuck cares, it's just a name.

-Nam

Militant atheists tend to protest any definition outside of the very basic for atheism. Disbelief in God. Then they tend to respond just as you have at anyone claiming to once have been an atheist. Kind of lame, really.

To be honest, I find this self-introduction to be just a wee bit dubious. First off, you pushed the whole "atheist, hates God" thing just a bit hard there, as well as the "homosexual relationship, promiscuous partner" thing. And then your miraculous conversion the very first time you read the Bible?

You'll have to excuse me for being doubtful, but it is not difficult to make up personal stories on the Internet, especially if you're a theist who believes all the guff about immoral homosexual atheists who hate Christians and God.

My mom was raised in a religious family and rejected the hypocrisy, my dad was from a family that rejected religion as nonsensical superstition. I grew up in a small town in Indiana surrounded by religious hypocrites. The Jehovah's Witnesses would come to the door and leave literature with my mom who was disinterested but tolerant. As a kid I was an avid reader and would save the books and a Bible they left her, but never got around to reading the stuff.

My story is my story. It isn't fabricated and it isn't meant to be a commentary on atheism or homosexuality. Theism, if anything.

Everyone I know today, my family, friends are atheist except for my mother who has become a JW. My hatred for Christianity didn't diminish upon what I learned, it increased. I typically feel more comfortable talking to atheists than Christians because the vast majority of modern day Christian teachings are pagan rather than biblical. The immortal soul from Socrates, Hell from Dante and Milton, the trinity from Plato, the Cross from Constantine, Easter from Astarte, Christmas from the winter solstice celebrations and even the later rapture from Darby.

My story is pretty much irrelevant to the discussion except for that I'm giving you a heads up on my beliefs being similar to that of the Watchtower. Though I've never belonged to any organized religion. Never will.

I'm skeptical here as well which leads me to a question I didn't think to really have to ask in this situation.

Can you please describe how it feels to be raised by atheists and/or thinking that "you do not belong to a particular religious group" has felt in your life? Were you treated differently and/or asked difficult questions that made you feel ostrisized from family and friends? Has being an atheist changed how and the way you speak to people when they bring up Jesus or other god?

Any details on this would be great...

« Last Edit: July 09, 2013, 10:19:44 PM by DVZ3 »

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Hguols: "Its easier for me to believe that a God created everything...."

My cousin just recently graduated from 'Elm bible school' in NY... He's a 'True Christian' as I know this because he'll tell you.

Here's one of his recent brain dumps.

Quote

"I'm not concerned with gay marriage being legal. We live in a world of sin and we can't stop sinners from sinning, but Jesus can. No law will convict a person of their sin. No, it's the Spirit of Christ in you and your life that should convict them so you can bring them to Jesus."

Megan replied with this...

Quote

"I just think, that still after these long explanations, that you view non-heterosexual orientations as 'bad' or something that is a 'sin'. Your explanations dance around it to avoid what you actually mean. Although you seem to show support for their rights which is excellent, you think there is something morally wrong with it, which is a problem. Think of what you're saying in terms of another identity, say race. You're friends with people of color, you support their rights, but at the end of the day you still think their race is a sin, they missed the mark. I think you need to rethink what you view as oppressive, because thinking someone is sinful for the way they were born is. I don't have anything else to say on the matter."

My reply was this...

Quote

"Megan hit this issue right at the 'heart' of the real problem. People who believe in gods, "theists" want and need to believe their story is true so badly that they develope and deploy mental gymnastics that would win a gold medal at the "Holy Shit..Do you hear yourself! Olymipics". The reality is in a modern world of science and knowledge it's becoming increasingly difficult to ignore the obvious fact that humanity evolved beyond the character jesus/god of the bible and human oppression needs stop.

The word sin you use is word created to oppress and invoke a supernatural connotation rather than just trying to actually communicate bad (socially unacceptable) things in societies for people to prosper. Nobody should ever be lead to believe that the way they were born is a 'sin'. So again, you can dance around and try to mentally justify what you are lead to believe is right/wrong however you want. But just like slavery wasn't a sin in the bible we figured out that it was still wrong and society evolved for the better.

Going by the religious trends and historical track records, I'm confident that even though you seem to distance yourself from most typical Christians, your still clinging to the wrong side/sins of history"

I'm curious where you will go with this discussion because I have my cousins reply's as well as mine to many others.

Let's see how well god, jesus, the bible can communicate to people - Not just gays who were born sinners.

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Hguols: "Its easier for me to believe that a God created everything...."

I'm skeptical here as well which leads me to a question I didn't think to really have to ask in this situation.

Can you please describe how it feels to be raised by atheists and/or thinking that "you do not belong to a particular religious group" has felt in your life?

When I say I was raised atheist, that is a quality rather than an affiliation. We wouldn't have marched in an atheist parade or joined an atheist group. We simply didn't believe in God.

It has felt great not being a part of any organized group, political, religious or atheistic. I am free to think for myself and my spiritual responsibility is my own, as it should be. If some old men somewhere decide I can't wear a rubber, I shouldn't marry, or I shouldn't have vaccinations, education, organ transplants or blood transfusions I am not bound by their traditional or societal mandates.

Were you treated differently and/or asked difficult questions that made you feel ostrisized from family and friends?

Not really, my family and friends were all pretty much the same as me. Growing up in the Bible belt there were Catholic and Baptist, Pentecostal religious nuts all around who's parents thought that my rock n roll look was an indication of my moral fiber, they told their kids to stay away from me because I probably did drugs. I didn't drink, or do drugs growing up, but all of my religious friends did.

In my opinion, the Christian has lost sight of the true meaning of the Bible, which is an example of our sinful nature. In order to compensate for a true connection there they create a personality which is not much more than show. Pretense. Though these denominations are primarily traditional and cultural manifestations of the pagan influenced apostate church they have to set themselves on a moral pedestal of superiority. A false sense, of course.

Here locally some Jehovah's Witnesses came across a well known local fire and brimstone preacher and they told him that hell wasn't a Bible teaching, it was pagan in origin. To their surprise he answered "Oh, I know that." So they asked him if he taught the hellfire doctrine because he wanted to frighten his congregation to attend regularly and he laughed out loud and this and said: "No, I teach it because if I didn't I would be out of a job."

Has being an atheist changed how and the way you speak to people when they bring up Jesus or other god?

Definitely. I don't have that false sense of moral superiority or pretense of niceness. Even as a very young child my parents didn't impose upon me any of the usual mythology. No Santa Clause, No tooth fairy, no Easter bunny and no such thing as obscene words. I talk like a sailor. Also I will never give an answer to the Bible of "It's a mystery."

I'm curious where you will go with this discussion because I have my cousins reply's as well as mine to many others.

Let's see how well god, jesus, the bible can communicate to people - Not just gays who were born sinners.

Your cousin sounds as if he is lost in a rolling sea of platitudes. Deep down beneath the scratched surface there is a void he thinks he can fill by walking the walk and talking the talk. He probably doesn't believe a word of it.

Megan is near the mark, especially her literal reference as sin meaning a missing of the mark. Though she would have your cousin accept homosexuality, when he doesn't, and shouldn't have to just because it is the thing to do.

My beliefs based upon the Bible are very similar to the JWs, in that they are apolitical. We see the congregation as no part of the world, thus not influencing it in any way through legislation or political affiliation. Let them decide for themselves if gay marriage is acceptable, and let the congregation decide for themselves. Without interference from either side to the other.

Your response is less tolerant and informed as Megan's, it seems to me. Science is the imperfect interpretation of the world around us just as theology is the imperfect interpretation of creation by the creator.